How to create post-event content to enhance your marketing strategy

Events are the per­fect way to intro­duce your cus­tomers to your brand cul­ture, ser­vices or prod­ucts, whether you host them in-per­son or online. But your mar­ket­ing doesn’t have to stop once the doors close on your event. In fact, the event itself can be a great source of con­tent to enhance your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy mov­ing for­ward. Whether it’s your first event or you’re an event plan­ning pro, here are a few sug­ges­tions of how you can cre­ate effec­tive post-event con­tent.

1. The benefits of post-event content

Post-event pro­mo­tion keeps peo­ple talk­ing about your event long after it’s over, which not only gives you a chance to cel­e­brate your suc­cess­es but also helps your brand build con­nec­tions with its audi­ence. Post-event mar­ket­ing allows you to tap into the core pur­pose of the event and your audience’s desire for edu­ca­tion and con­nec­tion, and to repeat your mes­sage so it stays at the fore­front of everyone’s minds. It can also be used to build enthu­si­asm for future events, prod­uct launch­es and busi­ness devel­op­ments.

2. How to develop marketing opportunities from your event

Your event pro­vides so many oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­tent and cus­tomer rela­tion­ship build­ing, from col­lect­ing feed­back from your atten­dees to help you cre­ate bet­ter events in the future to pro­vid­ing you with con­tent for a host of dif­fer­ent mar­ket­ing plat­forms.

Hone your post-event communications

Your post-event strat­e­gy should start with fol­low­ing up with your guests, which should include send­ing a thank you email to thank them for attend­ing, and con­tact­ing those who couldn’t attend a ‘Sor­ry you missed it’ email to show them that they were missed and that you hope they’ll attend in the future. These com­mu­ni­ca­tions help your cus­tomers feel val­ued and that goes a long way in not only help­ing with atten­dance for future events your busi­ness hosts but also encour­ages cus­tomer loy­al­ty.

Build a post-event page on your site

A post-event page lets your guests relive the fun they had at your event (or in the case of those who couldn’t attend, see what they missed out on). There are sev­er­al ways to devel­op this area of your site, from adding a recap video to pho­tos of the event in a gallery, a music playlist that evokes the songs played on the night or a col­lec­tion of tweets that atten­dees post­ed dur­ing and after the event itself. It’s a page you can link to in mar­ket­ing con­tent and almost use as a review of the event for future occa­sions.

Create video content for socials

Video is one of the most pop­u­lar forms of con­tent today, so it should be an essen­tial ele­ment of your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Events are a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op engag­ing video con­tent, from an overview of the event set to music to clips from speak­ers or enter­tain­ment, or inter­views with atten­dees. It’s a dif­fer­ent way to engage with audi­ences and pro­vides you with valu­able con­tent you can use in email cam­paigns, on your web­site and on socials.

Use hashtags to develop communities

One of the rea­sons why peo­ple attend events is to con­nect with oth­er peo­ple, net­work and find like-mind­ed con­nec­tions. So even after the speech­es have end­ed and the chairs packed away, you can tap into this ele­ment by pro­vid­ing your audi­ence with oppor­tu­ni­ties to get involved and con­nect with oth­er peo­ple. In fact, your atten­dees can even become your con­tent cre­ators with the use of care­ful­ly cho­sen hash­tags that they can use to post their own pho­tos and videos of the event.

These hash­tags and oth­er opt-in com­mu­ni­ties, whether on Slack or oth­er social plat­forms, not only enable peo­ple to con­tribute to the con­tent but they cre­ate the feel­ing of inclu­sion and shared ref­er­ences that help every­one feel as though they’ve been a part of some­thing tru­ly spe­cial. It also pro­vides you with anoth­er avenue to pro­mote future events by get­ting in touch with peo­ple who have shown inter­est before.

Repurpose and refresh

You’ll have spent a long time and a lot of effort plan­ning and pro­duc­ing con­tent for your event, so don’t let it go to waste. The con­tent you’ve already made to mar­ket the event can be devel­oped fur­ther to cre­ate new con­tent that will help you build engage­ment and pro­mote your ser­vices, prod­ucts or mes­sage.

This may take the form of repur­pos­ing con­tent into a new for­mat, such as tak­ing a blog and turn­ing it into a pod­cast episode or an email into a social media post. You can also remix con­tent by com­bin­ing exist­ing con­tent pieces, or refresh out­dat­ed con­tent with new facts and fig­ures inspired by your event. This will help you main­tain con­sis­tent mes­sag­ing through­out your mar­ket­ing and pre­vent you need­ing to start from scratch when pro­duc­ing con­tent.

Build engagement with contests

Keep the fun going and avoid any post-event blues by giv­ing your fol­low­ers some­thing to take part in. For exam­ple, you may want to host a social media con­tent with a prize for the win­ner, such as the fun­ni­est cap­tion for a pho­to or have every­one sub­mit their favourite pho­to of the event which oth­ers can vote on for the win­ner.

Or maybe you con­tact every­one on your email list to ask for their review of the event, with the best one win­ning a dis­count for your next events, or a prize from an event spon­sor. It builds engage­ment with your atten­dees, con­tin­ues the sense of fun and excite­ment from the event itself and pro­vides you with reviews and tes­ti­mo­ni­als you can use in the future.

While your focus may be on pre-event mar­ket­ing, con­sid­er­ing how you’ll main­tain that engage­ment after the event is done and dust­ed is just as impor­tant. And as we’ve seen, it offers numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for your busi­ness to enhance rela­tion­ship build­ing, your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy and engage­ment. There’s a chance to gath­er valu­able feed­back for even bet­ter future events, make your audi­ence feel a part of the pro­ceed­ings and cre­ate unique con­tent far eas­i­er, all while meet­ing your event goals.

Dis­cov­er the sim­ple and effec­tive tools that will help you in all phas­es of the organ­i­sa­tion of your event: before, dur­ing and after, by click­ing on the but­ton below.

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